If you listen to eclectic, tech-savvy billionaires, we may be raising the generation tasked with outsmarting the machines that are destined to become our robot overlords. In 2015, more than 1,000 tech experts, scientists and researchers signed a letter warning against killer robots, artificial intelligence and autonomous weaponry.

These weren’t crackpots, either. Among the signatories were physicist Stephen Hawking, entrepreneur Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. The letter was also endorsed by MIT professor Noam Chomsky and Demis Hassabis, the head of AI at Google.

Ireland’s President Michael Higgins believes the time for young students to bone up on philosophy is now. Higgins, as Ireland struggled to recover from the global economic crisis in 2013, launched a nationwide debate over what Ireland valued as a society. In response to those conversations, philosophy was introduced into the curriculum of Irish schools for the first time this past September.

The reason philosophy will be so critical to future generations is crystal clear.

“We will need people who are prepared to ask, and answer, the questions that aren’t Googleable: like what are the ethical ramifications of machine automation?” wrote Charlotte Blease this week in an opinion piece in The Guardian. “What are the political consequences of mass unemployment? How should we distribute wealth in a digitized society? As a society we need to be more philosophically engaged.”

I’m not aware of any American schools following that trend, despite its apparent wisdom. However, as a reporter working the education beat, day in and day out, I can appreciate the value of beginning to teach students philosophy — particularly as we move beyond the Information Age. Students coming of age today will have any information they could possibly need at their immediate disposal. In such a world, it becomes crucial that they understand how to process that information critically and analyze it intelligently.

In conversations with the state Workforce Solutions Secretary Celina Bussey, top officials at New Mexico State University, Doña Ana Community College and Las Cruces Public Schools, I have heard time and time again about the importance of closing the so-called “soft skills gap.” Business leaders and hiring managers say students are coming into the workforce educated, but lacking critical “soft skills,” like communication skills, problem solving, critical observation and conflict resolution.

It seems like teaching philosophy to younger children might help develop some of these skill sets, as well.

I won’t lie. I didn’t take philosophy courses until I was in college, and I struggled as I waded through Plato, Descarte and Nietzsche. At the time, it seemed like the naval-gazing ponderings on one’s own existence, and I frequently felt like I was going mad. Nevertheless, I studied the material diligently and completed the course unwittingly having become a better critical thinker.

As of right now, the philosophy course is optional for Irish 12- to 16-year-olds.

But Blease is not fooling herself when it comes to what philosophy can accomplish.

“Philosophy won’t bring back the jobs,” she notes. “It isn’t a cure-all for the world’s current or future woes. But it can build immunity against careless judgments, and unentitled certitude.”

And I believe she’s right. So is President Michael Higgens. Students who begin studying history’s great thinkers now will be better prepared to deal with the moral and ethical issues that we may one day count on them to address. Issues that arise in modern society — including war, racism, sexual morality and world food distribution.